Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (9 page)

"Their faith is of no value to us," Draycos growled.

"I'm sure something can be worked out," Uncle Virge assured him
hastily. "Really. Iota Klestis is in human-claimed space, and the
Internes government has always had a soft spot for refugees. How many
of you are coming?"

Draycos hesitated, then dipped his head slightly. "Four million
K'da and fifteen million Shontine," he said.

Jack whistled softly. "That's a lot of refugees."

Draycos's eyes bored into him. "No," he said quietly. "Not when
you consider that there were once a billion K'da and ten billion
Shontine."

"Wait a minute," Uncle Virge said. "Are you saying they're
all
coming?"

"All that remain, yes," Draycos said. "Rather than let the
Valahgua destroy us, we made the decision to flee from the lands we
loved."

His mouth opened slightly, his sharp teeth glittering in the
subdued light. "The world where my comrades died was to be our new
home."

Jack swallowed hard. No wonder Draycos was scared. "Except that
the Valahgua know they're coming."

Draycos's tail twitched. "Yes," he said. "And despite our caution,
they have somehow learned our precise destination."

"And now that the advance team has been eliminated?" Uncle Virge
asked.

"There is a meeting arranged before the fleet reaches their new
home," Draycos said. "I do not know the location. If the advance team
does not send an escort to meet them, the refugee leaders will know
something is wrong."

An unpleasant chill ran up Jack's back. "But the Valahgua and
their allies have three of your ships now," he said.

"Yes," Draycos said quietly, his eyes looking oddly haunted. "And
from the ships, they surely have learned the location of the meeting.
They need only mount the Death aboard one of them, and they will be
among the refugee ships before the leaders realize their danger."

He lifted his head up again. "And almost within sight of the world
where they had hoped to find peace, the K'da and Shontine races will be
destroyed."

Jack took a deep breath. "How long before they get here?"

The dragon's tail twitched. "Six Earth months."

For a long minute the dayroom was silent, with only the distant
rumbling of the drive in the background. "Okay, I'm convinced," Jack
said at last. "As soon as we get to Vagran, we'll go to the Internes
liaison office. Someone there can take you to Earth and StarForce
headquarters."

Draycos cocked his head. "You will not take me yourself?"

Jack frowned. "I thought you were all hot to get this to someone
official," he said. "Riding a government or StarForce agent is the
fastest way to do that. Trust me."

"I do trust you," Draycos said. "That is the point."

Jack blinked. "You've lost me."

"I trust you, Jack Morgan," the dragon said. "You have proven
yourself to be a friend and ally. I do not yet trust anyone else in
this region of space."

Jack opened his mouth; closed it again. "Look, Draycos, I
appreciate the vote of confidence," he said. "Really I do. But this is
a job for someone who knows what they're doing, not me."

"Tell me then who betrayed us to the Valahgua," Draycos countered.
"Was it the Chitac Nomads? Was it the human who then met with us for
the actual purchase? Was it the Triost Mining Group? Was it your
Internes government itself?"

Jack spread his hands helplessly. "I don't know."

"Nor do I," Draycos said. "Until I do, I cannot afford to trust
anyone else."

Jack sighed. "Uncle Virge? Help me out here, will you?"

"Unfortunately, he's got a point, Jack lad," Uncle Virge said. "I
vote we go along with him."

Jack made a face. At least until Draycos had helped clear him of
the phony theft charge? Was that when Uncle Virge's vote would suddenly
change?

Probably. He'd noticed a lot of conniving and persuasion coming
out of the
Essenay
's computer since Uncle Virgil's death. Could
the old scoundrel have somehow imprinted it with more than just his
speech patterns? "Fine," he said with a sigh. "If that's the way you
want it, I'll play along."

Draycos bowed his head again. "In the name of my people, I thank
you, Jack Morgan."

"Your people are welcome," Jack said, yawning. "And just call me
Jack, okay? Go ahead and change course, Uncle Virge."

"Computing now," Uncle Virge said. "Do you want me to increase
speed, too?"

"Might as well," Jack said. "Not much point in saving fuel if I'm
going to wind up in prison anyway. Come on, Draycos, let's catch some
sleep. You can have Uncle Virgil's old cabin if you want."

"Thank you," Draycos said. He stood up and stretched catlike, his
head and forelegs close to the floor, his tail high up in the air. "I
would prefer to stay with you."

"Oh—right," Jack said. He'd almost forgotten the dragon's need to
stay close to his host. The whole idea still made his skin crawl a
little. "Well, come on then. It's been a long day."

Jack woke suddenly from a dream where a giant gold boulder had
rolled down a hill made of smoky dirt and was doing its best to crush
him. He opened his eyes, and in the faint light from the display screen
he got a glimpse of Draycos's tail as the dragon disappeared silently
out his cabin door. "Uncle Virge?" he murmured, glancing at the clock.
He'd been asleep for only three hours.

"I'm on him lad," his uncle's voice came back softly. "He's headed
for the cockpit."

Jack felt his stomach tighten. Was Draycos planning to hijack the
ship? "What's he doing?"

There was a short silence. "Nothing," Uncle Virge said at last.
"He looked over the control settings, checked the monitor station, then
left. Now he's headed for the galley."

In succession, the dragon visited the galley, the dayroom, Uncle
Virgil's old cabin, and the food/water storeroom. Nowhere did he so
much as touch anything. He headed into the corridor leading to the aft
section of the ship, sniffing at each of the storage lockers along the
way, then looked around the small cargo hold.

It wasn't until Draycos was in the engine room that Jack finally
caught on. "He's doing a check of the ship," he told Uncle Virge.
"Looking around for anything that might be wrong."

"What, he doesn't trust me?" Uncle Virge asked, sounding rather
offended. "Besides, how would
he
know if anything was wrong?"

"Don't be so touchy," Jack scolded mildly. "It's probably just
natural caution."

"Humph," Uncle Virge said. "Still, I suppose that as long as he
doesn't fiddle with anything . . ."

"That's the spirit," Jack said, rolling onto his other side and
pulling up the blanket again. "I'm going back to sleep. Wake me if we
hit anything."

"Trust me, you'd know," Uncle Virge said dryly.

"Good night, Uncle Virge."

But he didn't fall asleep right away. This thing with Draycos was
like the dogs he'd read about once who would prowl around their
masters' houses several times a night making sure everything was all
right.

Jack had never owned a pet before, but he'd always wondered what
it would be like. Maybe this was his chance to find out.

But no. Draycos wasn't a pet. He was a thinking, talking, very
independent creature on an important mission. Jack had better not start
thinking of him like a trained dog instead of the K'da warrior that he
was.

He smiled lopsidedly in the darkness. Not a problem. If today was
anything to go by, Draycos would be sure to remind him about that at
least once an hour.

A subtle reflection flicked across the bulkhead a few inches in
front of his face. "Everything all right?" he called.

"As best as I can tell," Draycos replied. "I am sorry to have
awakened you."

"That's okay," Jack said, rolling over again to face the dragon.
"You coming back aboard?"

Draycos seemed to study him. "I can stay away awhile longer, if
you'd prefer."

"It's up to you," Jack told him, trying not to let his relief show
in his voice. This whole thing was still very new, and he wasn't very
comfortable with it. The longer the dragon was able to keep his
distance, the better.

"Then I will sleep here for the present," Draycos said.

"Okay."

For a few minutes the room was silent. Draycos lay down on the
deck in the middle of the room, facing the door like a guard dog on
duty. The dragon's golden scales glinted faintly in the light from the
display, shimmering whenever he moved. Jack gazed at the shadowy
figure, still trying to wrap his mind around all this.

"So how long were you two together?" he asked suddenly.

The long neck lifted and half turned toward him. "Pardon?"

"You and your—what did you call him?"

"My symbiont?"

"Yeah, that. How long were you together?"

The gold-scaled tail flicked slightly. "Polphir and I were
companions for ten of your years," the dragon said.

Jack frowned. "Is that Earth years, or something else?"

"It is the unit we were told was your time basis," Draycos said.
"Is there more than one form of the unit?"

"No, if they just said years, they meant Earth Standard," Jack
confirmed. "You just seem older than that, somehow."

"I am," Draycos said. "Polphir was my second host. I had been with
another, named Trachan, for fifteen years before that. And of course I
had a guardian host during the five years I was a cub."

"Ah," Jack said. So the K'da was somewhere around thirty. That
seemed more reasonable. He wondered if that was considered young or old
for their species. "So what happened to Trachan? You two just split up?"

"Shontine and K'da do not 'split up,' " Draycos said stiffly. "He
was killed in battle with the Valahgua."

"Oh," Jack said, grimacing. "Sorry. I didn't mean to . . . you
know."

"It is all right," Draycos said quietly. "At least I was able to
mourn him properly. With Polphir . . . a proper farewell is not yet
possible."

"I'm sorry," Jack said again, feeling embarrassed and depressed at
the same time. He'd started the conversation in hopes of learning a
little more about this strange houseguest they'd picked up. Instead,
all he'd accomplished was to dredge up unpleasant memories.

Served him right for starting a conversation in the middle of the
night. "I guess I should let you sleep now, huh?" he added lamely.

"And you must be tired, as well," Draycos said.

"Yeah," Jack said. "Well . . . good night."

"Good night."

Taking a deep breath, Jack rolled over and adjusted the pillow
beneath his head. There was a lot he still didn't know about these
creatures, and a lot he still needed to know. But there would be time
for that.

Anyway, the important point was that the dragon had been fed, he'd
been talked to, and it seemed safe to be around him. That was enough
for now.

Eventually, of course, things would probably get trickier. Things
usually did. But as Uncle Virgil had been fond of saying, that was a
worry for another day.

Later, when Draycos returned to his back, he didn't even wake up.

It was early evening, local time, when the
Essenay
put
down at the main Vagran Colony cargo spaceport.

Or, rather, when the light freighter
Donkey's Age
put down
there. Rather than risk bringing the police or Braxton Security down on
their heads right from square one, Jack had decided to use a fake ship
ident. It was one of a set of four fakes that Uncle Virgil had bought
the same time he'd installed the chameleon hull-wrap.

He used a fake ID for himself, too, and got through customs
without raising any alarms. A few minutes later he was walking along
the high-ceilinged tube that led inward toward the central terminal
building. "You're being very quiet," he commented as he walked. "Do I
take it a K'da warrior would never do anything so dishonorable as
sneaking in under a phony name?"

"The warrior code recognizes that camouflage is often necessary,"
Draycos said from his right shoulder.

"But you still don't like it."

Draycos hesitated, just enough. "I am still learning the ways of
your society," he said.

"In other words, you don't like it," Jack concluded, wondering
vaguely why he was even arguing the point. Certainly Draycos didn't
want to argue it. Was he actually trying to push the dragon into
telling him he'd done something wrong?

If he was, he was wasting his time. "This place is not as I
expected," Draycos said, again ducking the question. "Why are there no
other beings here? I understood this to be the chief cargo area for
this world."

"Doesn't say much for the world, does it?" Jack agreed, giving up
the argument. The tube they were walking along was dirty, as if it
hadn't been cleaned or even swept in weeks. Embedded in the graytop
beneath their feet, the cargo-carrier monorail tracks looked a little
rusty, as if they hadn't been used in years. "And I've been to worse
places than this, too."

"Yet an important corporation like Braxton Universis had an
assembly plant here?"

"Cheap labor, probably," Jack said. "Humans and lots of different
aliens, too. There's also tons of raw materials out beyond the
settlements. The place hasn't been developed very much."

"They are unfair to their workers?"

"No idea, really," Jack said. "Anyway, the tubes Braxton used are
in much better condition. This place is laid out like a lopsided
starburst. There's a big three-story warehouse and terminal building in
the middle, with all these tubes leading off to the different landing
pads. You bring stuff into the warehouse by rail, pass it through
customs if you have to, then rail it out these tubes to the ships."

He pointed ahead. "The tube and landing pad I used with the
Braxton cargo is on the far side of the warehouse."